brown water

[Cathy Raphael]

My 850 gal ("all natural" - aka no filter) pond has had brown water now all summer. I have bought various things to clear it up - but none have worked. I finally had my pump returned from a neighbor and want to exchange some of the water. I bought some chlorine remover to use with the new (town) water. My neighbor (who had the pump - and used to have a huge pond) says I should NOT exchange the water at this time of the year. That the fish "need" the muck. I have (or had) 10 adult fish and now I see babies. My plants are the kind that weather-over the winter, and I keep the aerator going all year. I bought a white fish from a fish store 2 yrs ago - and its head appears to be gold-ish in color. Then I saw it "chasing" my other fish, and figured out it was a male. One of my other fish (I thought I had all goldfish) is white with a red head (aka "Lucy"). Then I saw a bunch of babies last year - and saw there were 3 different hatchings (because of the size of them) - and two were white with red spots. I THOUGHT that perhaps they were koi - and Lucy must have been, too. Then I read that all progeny from koi mixed with goldfish are sterile. But now I have more babies of that color. What do you think? a) should I exchange say 20% of the pond water now? or wait until spring; and b) These beautiful babies I am getting - are they koi? Perhaps Lucy AND the white one with a gold head are both koi? Thanks! Cathy Raphael, Newark, DE

 

[mrsclem]

Look for whiskers on your fish. If they have them, they are koi. Do you have a buildup of leaves on the bottom of your pond? If they are koi, you will need to see about adding some type of filtration.